Musica Mundana
by arioso dolente
Summary: The war is over. The war was life. A survivor reflects on beauty, ritual, and honor, while a little girl listens to the stars.


The war was over.

The news came as a rush of quiet, sudden wind that swept the Homeworld. The People were informed of a small band of aliens, alien _children_ that had devastated the massed force of the Empire's army, subtly, suddenly as the swooping hunting dive of the _kafit_ bird. No one could comprehend how it had happened, but within hours, all the People had learned of it when the swift terrible war came to its stuttering halt.

No one was immune to the shock this brought. The war was _life._ Vamsir-Sewlin-Corba knew this as well as anyone. For all that he had never gone to the Academy, had never trained in the tail-fighting arts or learned the specifics of shredder fire, of piloting a fighter, he knew war. It had been there as long as he could remember, and he had done his part, had used his considerable gifts as an engineer to design better shredders and fighters for the honor of the People.

He had known, distantly, that the People were once meant to focus themselves on something . . . _more_ than something as base and reproachable as war, but honor and shame (so closely and dangerously linked) had called, and the People had obliged. The People in their youth and optimism had once turned to ritual and mystery and flowers and wishes and wonder. Then, because they had needed to, because the rest of the worlds had needed them to, they had turned to war.

And so it became said that the war was life. Vamsir was never entirely sure what to think of this. The war was not by itself life. For all its savage blustering, the war could not be life, though it did remain a part of it, as linked to life as breathing. The war was all he had known, but that did not make it his. What did it matter.

Derla, he thought, Derla was life. Derla, with her sinuous grace and her small soft palms and her fierce, darting, blazing look. She had meant more to him, he thought, than the ritual and the mystery and all the rest of it had ever meant to the People, and she had _certainly_ meant more than that war.

_Look_, she had told him one day, one of those soft palms caressing a _mewlow_ tree that had just begun to blossom. _The world makes life to evolve and grow and live, and we look at it now, at one small stage of change, and we call it beautiful._ And she had flashed him that sharp look of laughter and he could only return it, his fingers catching hers around the flower.

The Andalite people needed beauty. They had once built their old rituals around its respect and honor. The rituals had all been rewritten with the coming of the war, the honor turned toward the good of the People, but Derla had still seen beauty, and had insisted in showing it to any others she met.

Derla created beauty. She was an _estreen_, and her morph-dances had entranced all onlookers with hints of the old wild beauty they had forsaken for the war. But even she was not immune from it, or from its strange suffocating sense of honor.

_I am needed,_ she had said to him. _The forces on Anati need capable spies if they are to survive without bloodshed. My talents in morphing mean that fewer may die._

It was a new concept, of allowing females to fight freely in the war, but most of the Homeworld's most talented _estreens_ were females, and the morphing technology, long overlooked as a novelty, was said to be gaining interest with the high command after news of its usefulness in the front on Earth. The _estreens _were being recruited, and for the honor, for the good of the People, many complied.

_What does the war mean to you!_ he had pleaded. _What has it to do with us here, with our home? You can still stay here and work. Stay with me._

Derla had only turned wide, glittering eyes on him in soft pity. _I am needed, _she had said. _I am needed, so I may prevent suffering. _She had stepped away from him then, turning her stalk eyes to the brilliant sweep of nighttime stars overhead. _It is an honor._

_It is an honor. _Honor. The word was so thick he thought he would drown in it. What could honor mean to him now? The war was over, now, and the People rejoiced, caught in the swift dizzying race of the news, but Vamsir was rooted to the earth, hooves still leaden with that single damning word.

The war was over. The war was life. _Derla_ was life.

What did it matter.

* * *

><p>The days drifted by in a sort of painful gray apathy, and Vamsir ran. He ran through tall blue-green forests, hooves trampling the grasses he had grown with as a child, finding the familiar caves and hills and wide, empty fields. Still, everywhere was filled with the joy of warriors returning home, of celebration and ritual, and it assaulted his senses like a miasma.<p>

He could not run from her, he found. Everywhere from the _kafit_ birds that dove in their graceful undulation as in one of her dances, to the sweeping turquoise fields, to the small white _mewlow_ flowers covering the trees reminded him of her. Even the moons and the stars he could not see without picturing them as they were on that terrible night, reflected in her deep liquid eyes.

Finally, when he could not run anymore, he returned home, overtaken by desperation.

* * *

><p>(You wish to visit Earth, Vamsir-Sewlin-Corba?) said the agent, a short female with watery green eyes. She touched her fingers to the computer cube, which obediently lit with a hologram of schedules and numbers. She gave him a cheerful smile. (Understandable, given the recent negotiations with the Earth governments. This would be a wonderful educational opportunity.) Her smile turned conspiratorial. (And of course, others will say that the human morph is a most enjoyable cultural experience. Why, from what I have read of Prince Aximili's memoirs . . .) She blinked and turned back to the computer, communing silently with it for a moment.<p>

Vamsir clasped his hands together and waited, his tail dashing lightly against his back hooves. Earth, the new premier destination for vacationing Andalites, was his last desperate attempt for peace. It was expensive, true, but his work as an engineer had not been without its compensations, and Derla had left everything of her earnings as an _estreen_ to him. It did not hurt that the military provided generous insurance to its valued spies and their families.

(Ah.) Vamsir straightened, turning his stalk eyes back to rest on her in a gesture of polite attention.

(Your credit is certainly adequate to travel off-planet. May I inquire how long you intend to stay?)

He shuffled his hooves. (I was thinking for half a year, if that is acceptable.) He prayed that it was.

(Certainly. That is the equivalent of 4.8 Earth months. Of course, for such an extended stay, you will have to apply for a visa, which will increase the cost. Is that acceptable? It should still be within your means.) The projection flashed with an image of the visa application at her instruction.

(Of course, that's fine.) Vamsir didn't hesitate. What else would he spend his credit on?

(Very well. As part of the associated costs, you will need to apply for a license to use the morphing technology and schedule an appointment to receive the universal translator chip. Would you like me to schedule that now?)

(Yes. As soon as possible, if you please.) His tail seemed to have acquired a nervous twitch. Discreetly, he attempted to still it.

(The soonest I can schedule is in ten days—there has been some demand recently, as you may imagine.) Her fingers flicked deftly over the hologram. (In addition, the visa and morphing license applications will take some time to go through. The morphing license requires an interview.) Another flick, and the applications were floating in the air toward him. (I can send these to your home console, so you may complete them at your leisure. The applications have instructions of the offices to send them, and you may contact them for scheduling your interview.)

Vamsir's stalk eyes drooped a little in anticipation of the paperwork, but he said, (All right. Where and at what time must I go to receive the translator?)

* * *

><p>Earth was cool and green and wet. He supposed he should have expected that, after reading that the planet contained so much water. But the green! he had never seen so much intensity of color. It seemed that a green mist suffused everything, so different from the reds and blues that dominated the plant life of the Homeworld.<p>

He had been told that Earth had a multitude of life forms, that its range of environments and resources allowed for great biodiversity, but hearing that was nothing to actually witnessing the beauty of Earth's life.

Other tourists would talk of acquiring humans and sampling the chaotic human cities with their local delicacies, but Vamsir knew what he would do before he even stepped off the ship. He would seek the forests, the mountains, the rivers, to try to find something of life that was not the war or the People or honor or petal-soft palms belonging to one with night-dark eyes.

* * *

><p>Vamsir soon found another thing that Earth was: confusing. Not even the cultural briefings he'd studied on the trip could have been enough to prepare him for the crush of humans at the port, all hurrying from place to place, not sparing the naïve alien tourists a second look. He found himself astonished at the sheer number of them—Earth was small as planets went, but the billions it managed to pack on its surface was staggering.<p>

He stepped out into the strangely yellow Earth sunlight and was met with another shock. The horizon seemed impossibly far away, the alien landscape stretching far beyond his questing eyes. He knew it meant they were experiencing the curvature of a planet that, while small, was larger than his own. Still, it gave him a headache. He looked away, and turned to join the rest of the tourists.

* * *

><p>"Hey. Andalite."<p>

A short red-faced human was standing there, doughy face crinkled in a way Vamsir guessed was not friendly. "Ya hear me?"

(Yes.) He lowered his tail in submission, attempting to appear non-threatening.

The human waved one hand aside, as if he were swatting a troublesome insect. "I toldjya, ya can't board this bus as ya are. We got no room in there for yer kind. Either morph a human shape or find somewheres else."

Vamsir nodded, something he had read was a human sign of acquiescence. (Of course, sir. I apologize.)

The truculent human's face drew tighter together, a feat Vamsir knew definitely wasn't possible with Andalite physiology. "Don' apologize. Jus' hurry up and morph or lemme git going. I gotta schedule to keep."

Vamsir nodded again and concentrated on the human shape the embassy had provided him, remembering to morph into his skintight human coverings—humans were oddly particular about personal propriety. While he morphed, the red-faced human shifted from foot to foot in a way that made Vamsir privately wonder if he was losing his balance, though he had noticed while in his human morph that the species had uncommonly good balance—they would have to, he supposed. The human snorted in his increasing impatience, and Vamsir was done. He was a lanky, yellow-haired human.

"Finally," said the red-faced human. He cast a distasteful look at Vamsir's skintight blue clothing and bare feet. "Ya got fare?"

Vamsir drew in a breath through his new mouth. "Yes," he said. The inflection was off, but it was passable. He drew and counted the human currency from the tote bag he'd been carrying and tried to hand it to the human.

The human jerked his thumb at a small box inside the bus next to the driver's seat. "In there." He threw another look at his passenger. "An' if ya got shoes in that bag of yers, ya better put 'em on. Company gotta policy."

Vamsir slipped his foot coverings on and hurried on the bus as quickly as his human limbs could take him, which given his inexperience with them, wasn't very much. As he climbed the stairs, he heard the human spit on the ground behind him and say, "Damn aliens."

He paused for a second before moving to sit on a bench next to other faintly hostile humans, wondering if his vacation had started yet, and if it had, whether he was supposed to be enjoying it.

* * *

><p>A hand landed on Vamsir's shoulder and he stilled his flinch, realizing that it was friendly. Humans were very physical beings, he thought.<p>

"Said that, did he? I wouldn't worry about it. They're all uptight like that, back east." The human chuckled and released him. "Buncha bigots too, apparently." He sighed, running fingers through long black hair, leaning his other arm on the shiny glass counter. "But I guess we got those all over."

Vamsir didn't know how to reply to that. After a moment, he said, slowly, (Humans act differently in different areas? As well as speaking different languages?)

"Oh sure, sure. We're a complicated bunch, or so I'm told. But enough about that. You want a lesson on anthropology, we could be here all night. And I'm no expert, Lord knows." He spread his mouth in what Vamsir was beginning to recognize as a human smile and held out one hand. "Can I see your map? If you're lost, I can show you where to go. Or recommend places, if you don't know."

Vamsir blinked, surprised at the sudden kindness after the aloofness that had been all there was to encounter for the rest of his visit. He handed over his map in acute relief. He knew he was in a place called "New Mexico," and the sign on the human building had proclaimed it a "welcome center," but he didn't know what that was. Certainly he had not expected it to be something so literal. (Thank you,) he said, trying to put as much gratitude as he could manage into the statement.

"Not a problem. S'my job, you know. Do you know where you're going?"

Vamsir pawed the ground in embarrassment. (Not—precisely, no. I—) He shook his stalk eyes a little. (It made sense at the time.)

The human stared at him, and then his swarthy face spread in a grin. "Adventure vacation, huh? I hear those are the best kind. Like to take one myself, but somehow, I've never left New Mexico. Don't know why. Should someday." He waved his hand in a way that was and wasn't in the manner of the red-faced human who drove the bus-vehicle. "Anyway. You got a decent map here. Let's see . . . there's plenty to see here in New Mexico. Desert, mostly, though I think it's pretty. And the food's great. Anything like that sound like what you want to visit?" The human's eyes flicked up to Vamsir, and he started, seeing glints of stars in black night. He didn't know human eyes could look like that.

(Forest,) he said, hardly knowing where the idea was coming from. Images of trees crowned with white flowers were playing in his head. (And—and mountains.) The souls of the dead were supposed to rest on mountaintops, or at least that was what the old Andalite legends had always said. (Is there anything like that in—New Mexico?)

The human cocked his head like a _kafit_ bird. "Maybe up north," he said. "There're some foothills up by Raton, though really, they're nothing special. You go that far north, you might as well go to Colorado. They've got _mountains_ there, and forest. The Rockies. Real pretty. Good time of year to go, too, it's almost summer."

Vamsir hid his incredulity at that. _This_ was summer on Earth? He quickly resolved to find someplace nearer the planet's equator after visiting these—what were they?

(These Rockies are mountains? In this—Colorado?) His stalk eyes scanned the map that was spread on the counter.

The human nodded, and one finger pointed to a green rectangle on the map labeled "Colorado." "See? It's a bit of a drive from here, but if it's mountains you want, that's where you want to go. The Rockies stretch all over the continent, but they're the nicest in Colorado." He scratched his head. "Or maybe in Canada, I dunno, but I don't think you want to go _that_ far north."

Vamsir's stalk eyes stretched up the length of the map to the portion that was labeled "Canada." (Perhaps not. Could you show me how to get to this Colorado?)

The human did more than show him the way to Colorado. Vamsir was soon flying north in the form of an Earth bird called a turkey vulture, contents of the tote bag stored in a tiny _Garnanth_ Zero-space pouch bound around his leg.

The human showed him the bird to acquire, and once he had morphed, fastened the pouch to his leg with a bit of elastic. "Poor guy got tangled in a power line," he said, indicating the bird sitting placidly on a cloth-covered perch. "He'll never fly again. We got people here to take care of him, and here he can help the kids learn about the creatures around them. Good for 'em, keep 'em away from their video games." He winked one eye at Vamsir, leaving the Andalite puzzled at the intended meaning. "Never had any tourists round here to, what's it, _acquire_ him before, but you'll be glad of the opportunity, huh? I'd sure love to fly." His face turned wistful then, dark eyes staring thoughtfully into the wide blue sky.

* * *

><p>Vamsir turned slightly in the wind as, far below, he saw the human sign that welcomed visitors to Colorado. He adjusted his tail feathers, instinct somehow pointing him northwest. The <em>Garnanth<em> pouch buzzed slightly against his leg—its ambient energy field would always make it uncomfortable to wear for long periods, and he would have to stop and demorph eventually anyway, but for now, he could simply experience the singular joy of flight.

He hadn't expected to enjoy it. Andalites were naturally creatures of the ground; they had learned to fly with technology, they built and traveled in ships, but they were never at home away from the soil and the grass. But the turkey vulture was buoyant and graceful in the odd blue Earth sky, calm, content, and Vamsir couldn't help but be swayed by it. For all its alienness, the landscape had a stark sensibility that reminded him of the Homeworld, with its long expanses of flat land, covered with tall, golden grass. He was still reminded that this was Earth in the deep blue sky, dotted with heavy white clouds, and of course, in the hazy shapes of indigo mountains in the distance, but these endless fields of grass that rippled like waves in the endless, endless wind . . . Yes. He would have to demorph soon, slower way of travel or not. He was an Andalite, and Andalites needed to _run._

So he ran, taking shelter only rarely, when the clouds gathered and wrinkled with threats of thunderstorms, and kept his belongings bound around his wrist in the _Garnanth_ pouch when he rested. He doubted any passing hostile humans would be foolish enough to attempt to rob an Andalite, but—well. The embassy had recommended such measures for wayfaring tourists, and he had to admit it a sensible suggestion.

In a strange way, it was a blissful existence, almost meditative in its simplicity. He ate, and quickly grew used to the dry flavor of the tough spindly Earth grass. He slept in the open fields when he could, and under the metal-roofed picnic shelters of the highway rest areas only twice, when the weather was bad. He spoke briefly to the few curious humans who sought him out, but most ignored him, sparing him only glances before speeding ahead in their motor vehicles. It almost alarmed him. Had the war even happened here at all, for the humans to seem so blasé about it? The humans clearly didn't value this place much, or they would have stamped it with more of their asphalt and concrete cities, as they were wont to do with anything they attached themselves to. Perhaps the Yeerks had taken their cue from them, and left it untouched. Vamsir hoped so. He wanted there to be somewhere in the galaxy—or in his small sphere of it—that that accursed war hadn't corrupted.

It was an odd relief when he left the flat grass plains of the south of Colorado, finding himself picking through rockier ground punctuated with low dark green bushes of trees, which smelled sharp and unpleasant and tasted even worse to his hooves. The ground was sloping upward now, and he knew it was because he was approaching the mountains, and that the low bushy trees would progress to taller straighter ones as the elevation rose. It was then that he secured his belongings in the _Garnanth_ pouch again, morphed to the turkey vulture, and, with some difficulty, attached it to his leg before taking off. The bird was able to approach faster and easier than Vamsir had been able to in his own form, and soon, he could see them before him. Too suddenly, they were below him, the lower mountains spread out beneath, the higher ones shining with the sunlight reflected from their snowy peaks.

He had to resist the sudden urge to land, to turn around and flee, to go back to the other tourists and find the shiny glass cities with their human entertainments and concoctions. But here he was, at the Earth embodiment of _Shornith am Ixtha_. The Seat of the Dead. He couldn't turn back now, when he had found what he had been seeking all along. He flicked his tail, wings in a shallow angle, and circled lower between the peaks.

* * *

><p>Vamsir stumbled over a protruding tree root and wondered, not for the first time, what he was doing here.<p>

This could not be _Shornith am Ixtha_. It was a mountain, surely enough, and far taller and more impressive than any on the Homeworld, but this was no Seat of the Dead. The trees here did not speak; the grass and flowers knew no rituals that would lay the soul to rest. This was one more alien wonder on an alien world.

Finally, he stopped and tugged the _Garnanth_ pouch from his wrist, using the mechanism to release his stored possessions from inside. He put them with the empty pouch in the simple cloth tote bag he'd been carrying before, on the bus to New Mexico. He stood for a moment to catch his breath and ease his burning muscles, stalk eyes searching about restlessly.

He'd already tried to morph the turkey vulture to save himself from walking along the ever-present slope, but quickly learned that the bird, with its wide broad wings so well-suited for soaring over the plains, was next to useless in the dense forest. So he walked, taking in the tall, straight, thick-barked trees, which shed little brown needles on the forest floor, the lingering patches of dirty white snow, and the small pink flowers growing on bushes that tasted sweet, but bore thorns that scratched his ankles. He stopped again to examine them, his frustration growing. This place could not help him. These plants, these pink flowers, those nodding yellow ones carpeting the ground around him, were not, could not be like the delicate, frivolous _mewlow_ trees that bloomed a mere three days out of the year. Earth was not his home. What was wrong with him?

* * *

><p>Vamsir stayed for a while, not knowing what else to do. He still had plenty of time before his visa expired, and after all the time he'd taken to arrive at the Colorado place's mountains, he could not justify leaving so quickly. So he found a meadow that didn't have too much of a slope and spent his days there, slowly learning to recognize the plants and the birdcalls and the numerous insects.<p>

He was taken entirely by surprise by the human child who found him.

"Hi."

His stalk eyes immediately shifted to fix on her, and he turned to face her, though he was unsure about how such rules of etiquette applied to humans, who only had two eyes. She was a tiny thing, with wild brown hair and smudges of dirt on her hands and even on her face. Her eyes were large, blue, and innocently curious. (Hello,) he said, because he was not sure what else to say.

She jerked her thumb behind her, toward a copse of trees. "My dad and I are camped a little bit over that way. We're backpacking, and it's my first time, and I think I like it, but it's really hard. You're an Andalite, right? Are you here on vacation? Do you like it here?" Her voice was sweet, high, and very fast.

He stared for a moment and wondered which parts of her speech to answer first. She laughed, and stepped up to him with a boldness that made his eyes widen. "I'm Miranda. What's your name?" She took his hand in hers in the standard human greeting.

He let her shake it automatically. (I am Vamsir-Sewlin-Corba.)

She wrinkled her nose. "Vamsir . . . Seew . . ." She trailed off, frowning in confusion.

(You may call me Vamsir,) he said. (That is my given name; the rest is like what you would call a last name.)

She brightened. "Okay! And you can call me Miranda, that's _my_ given name."

He nodded seriously in the human fashion and said, (Aren't you rather young to be here by yourself?) She barely came up to his chest.

She drew herself up. "I am not! I'm ten and a half. And anyway, my dad's right over there, I told you. He said it's okay for me to look around for a bit if I don't go too far, 'cause he's all tired out from hiking."

He nodded again, still bemused. (All right,) he said. What did "ten and a half" mean in human terms of aging? She was a child, but not too young, perhaps? He rubbed his head. The sun was setting, now, and he would have to graze soon and perform the evening ritual, as tempted as he was to skip it. He was about to voice this when he heard someone calling in the distance.

"Miranda! Dinner!"

She turned to him. "I have to go. Are you going to be here for a while? I think my dad and I are staying for at least a couple days."

(Yes.) That was one thing he could be sure of.

She smiled. "Okay. It was nice to meet you, Vamsir!" She turned and ran easily through the trees.

* * *

><p>She was back early the next morning, and filled up most of the day with eager chatter. She went to school in a city in one of the flatter parts of Colorado, but she and her father were taking time off for a vacation. She liked the color purple. Her father was a historian.<p>

"He studies everything, though, really," she said to him, idly gathering flowers in her fist. "He says he's a bibliophile, which really just means he likes books a lot. So do I," she added, looking up at him proudly. "I'm the fastest reader in my class."

Vamsir regarded her with amusement. (And yet you both managed to get away from them to come all the way up here?)

She snorted. "Of course. It was Dad's idea in the first place, he thinks it's important to get away from civilization. I think it's 'cause he thinks he's a philosopher." She giggled. "I think I like it, too. It's really pretty up here, isn't it?"

He looked around, at the tall, fuzzy-tipped grass, the flowers, the view of distant treetops that stretched far into the horizon. (I suppose. It's strange to me—it's very different from what I'm used to.)

Her head snapped back to him in new interest. "What are you used to?" she asked. "What's your home like? Have you been to lots of other planets?"

He smiled in spite of himself. (Only here, I'm afraid, and my home. I was never in . . . the war, so this is my first time off-planet.)

Her eyes glowed. "Oh, but still, it must be so amazing, to visit another planet. Is it really so different here, from your home planet?"

Vamsir thought of falling white flower petals, of waving turquoise fields, of damp caves with runes carved in the walls. (In a way,) he said, turning to look at the bluish treetops again. A bird chirped in the distance. (But perhaps—perhaps not so much.)

* * *

><p>She came back after her dinner that evening, wearing a soft thick covering to guard against the cold. "Dad's meditating," she said, rolling her eyes. "I keep telling him, he's such a hippie sometimes. I think he probably would have named me Autumn or Rain or something silly like that if he'd had the choice. My mom insisted on naming me something normal." She wrinkled her nose. "Not that I think Miranda is so much better, mind you. It sounds like a grown-up's name."<p>

Vamsir found himself struggling, as was becoming common in conversations with her, to find the first point of what she had said. (He's meditating?) he said. He was familiar with the practice, but he had assumed it was something only Andalite warriors regularly did.

She nodded. "That was one of the things he wanted to do on our trip, was meditate under the stars. He even planned it so there would be a new moon. Says he wants to try hearing the _musica mundana_. And there he goes, being a hippie again. Or a historian. A hippie historian."

Vamsir was almost ready to give up trying to understand. (He wants to try to hear the . . . the what?)

She shook her head. "I don't know. I barely understand it. I doubt _he_ understands it, really." She sighed. "Apparently, there was this guy in the Middle Ages, so way back, like over a thousand years ago, who decided that music could be divided into three types. I forget the names of the other two, but they were the music of the human body and its functions, and the music of instruments and voices, which is really the only kind you can actually hear, so I think it should be the only kind actually called _music_, but anyway . . . _Musica mundana_ is the music of the spheres, or music of the universe. It's supposed to govern and unify the movements and behavior of the planets and the stars, and the way it does that is through math, and a bunch of stuff I don't really get. I sort of zone out when Dad talks about it too much."

Vamsir twitched his tail in thought. The ancient Andalites had had their share of mysticism as well, though he had never heard of anything like this. (So your father is meditating . . . to hear music that no one can actually hear?)

She threw up her hands. "I don't know! He's crazy! Apparently, just because he went to college doesn't mean he has any _sense._" She gestured upward, to the now-black sky. "Anyway, if you want to experience the stars, you should look up and see them, not close your eyes and try to hum your way into oneness with them."

He looked up. This high on the mountain, away from the human city lights, the stars seemed close and almost alive, the edge of the galaxy trailing through them like a pearly band. (They're beautiful here,) he said, surprised to find that he meant it. For once, he didn't see Derla's eyes in the blackness, only the small burning points of light.

She said, "I read that the Hork-Bajir call the stars flowers. They do kind of look like them, don't they? Like daisies, or little white snowdrops. I wish you could see those, they're really pretty, I saw pictures of them growing in England. Only I think they only come out really early in the spring." She tilted her head. "Oh! That's why they call them snowdrops, huh? They pop right out of the snow."

She glanced at him at that, but he did not reply, his eyes widening as he took a step away from her, stalk eyes turning upward.

Vamsir felt her gaze on him, and he swiveled one eye toward her to see her biting her lower lip, a uniquely human expression that he was unable to identify. "I hope you don't mind," she said, and he realized the expression must have been nervousness. "I like to do a lot of reading about this stuff—aliens, you know—I know I don't know much about it, and I'm not _trying_ to be offensive, really I'm not. Promise you're not offended?" She was dancing from foot to foot, now, eyes darting up to him.

He turned his eyes to the sky again, staring at the stars as if he'd never seen them before, pausing for a moment. (No, I am not,) he said, not seeing her shoulders sag in relief. (You are . . . quite an extraordinary child.)

She grimaced. "Um, thanks? I guess? Not sure how you figure that, let alone if it's true."

He smiled, and was silent. He closed his eyes and tried to imagine the stars moving across the sky as the planet turned, as the ancient humans must have seen, and taken as music in their strange way. A gust of wind blew through the trees then, howling as it went and startling his eyes open again.

Miranda met his eyes and smiled at him. "Here," she said, pressing a flower into his hand, one from the bunch she had picked that afternoon. "This is a daisy, if you haven't seen one. You can keep it if you want."

Vamsir looked down at the flower, at the rays of soft white petals surrounding a golden heart. He took it.

The sky blazed with light that night.


End file.
